Taylor Festival Choir Presents “Music for Royal Occasions” Featuring Guest Conductor Dr. Joseph Flummerfelt

Press Release

The Taylor Festival Choir presents its third concert of the 2018-2019 season, “Music for Royal Occasions,” at 3 pm on Sunday, January 27th at Circular Congregational Church. World-renowned conductor Dr. Joseph Flummerfelt, best known in Charleston for his work with Spoleto Festival USA and Westminster Choir College, shares the podium with TFC’s Founding Director Dr. Robert Taylor.

The concert program is inspired by and incorporates musical selections from British Royal Occasions ranging from the recent weddings of Prince Harry/Meghan Markle and Prince William/Kate Middleton, to coronations of Queen Elizabeth I and II and King George II. Repertoire will include Handel coronation anthems Zadok the Priest and Let Thy Hand be Strengthened, “Credo” from Vaughan Williams’ Mass in G, “Laudate Dominum” from Solemn Vespers, Behold our Great Defender by Howell, and “Halellujah” from Beethoven’s Mount of Olives.

“I am thrilled to be back in Charleston to share this interesting program with my dear colleague Rob Taylor and his Taylor Festival Choir.  For sure with this choir, his years at the College of Charleston, and as director of the Charleston Symphony Chorus, Rob has had a major impact on the choral life of Charleston,” said Dr. Flummerfelt.

“It is one of the great privileges of my career to share the podium with the great Joe Flummerfelt. I am equally gratified that he will be conducting the ensemble created to honor my parents. What a special moment for the Taylor Festival Choir!” said Founding TFC conductor Rob Taylor.

Tickets for the Charleston concert are $25 general seating and $35 preferred seating. Immediately following the Charleston concert, a special reception with Dr. Flummerfelt will be held at the Anglin Smith Fine Art Gallery at 9 Queen Street. Reception tickets are $25 and include light appetizers and wine. Concert and reception tickets can be purchased at www.tmgcharleston.com. The Music for Royal Occasions concert will also travel to First Presbyterian Church in Orangeburg, SC on Saturday, January 26 at 7:30pm. Tickets for the Orangeburg concert are $15 and can also be purchased at www.tmgcharleston.com.

Musical America’s 2004 Conductor of the Year, Dr. Joseph Flummerfelt’s musical artistry has been acclaimed in many of the world’s concert halls for nearly 40 years. He is founder and musical director of the New York Choral Artists, an artistic director of Spoleto Festival USA, and for 33 years was conductor of the world-renowned Westminster Choir. A gifted orchestral conductor, Flummerfelt has conducted more than 50 performances with the Spoleto Festival Orchestra in Italy and in the U.S. He has also appeared as guest conductor with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the Juilliard Symphony Orchestra, and the San Antonio and Phoenix Symphonies. In 1988 he made his New York Philharmonic debut with a performance of Haydn’s Creation, and in 2001 he conducted the world premiere of Stephen Paulus’s Voices of Light with the Philharmonic and the Westminster Choir. In 2004 his New York Choral Artists recording of John Adams’s On the Transmigration of Souls was awarded three Grammys. Earlier he was nominated for the Westminster Choir’s recording of the Haydn Lord Nelson Mass with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic and Berlioz’s Romeo et Juliette with Riccardo Muti and the Philharmonia Orchestra. Widely known as a master teacher, Flummerfelt has long worked with both gifted students and established professionals in his classes and rehearsals at Westminster Choir College and in master classes in the United States and around the world

The Taylor Festival Choir is a professional chamber choir based in Charleston, SC. Founded and conducted by Robert Taylor, the choir is inspired by the life and career of Bob Taylor, the conductor’s late father and a noted choral musician and pedagogue. Since its inception in 2001, the Taylor Festival Choir has toured and been heard in prestigious venues and festivals throughout the U.S., and has garnered a reputation of excellence among critics and choral specialists alike. TFC was one of only two American adult chamber choirs featured at the prestigious 2009 American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) National Convention and 50th anniversary celebration, and they were again featured in the ACDA Southern Division Conference in February 2017, where they were selected to perform the prestigious Raymond W. Brock commissioned composition.

The Taylor Festival Choir has recorded on the Delos, Centaur, and MSR Classics labels. Their recent recording of BBC composer of the year James MacMillan’s Mass and Celtic Mass by Michael McGlynn received rave reviews throughout Europe. Their recording Sing We Now of Christmas, recorded with legendary guest artists including Liz Carroll, John Doyle and Kim Robertson, has been called “a choral feast that will linger long in your memory after you’ve heard it” (Audio Society of Atlanta). TFC serves as the professional choir-in-residence at the College of Charleston. It presents a full concert season in the Charleston area, and serves as the flagship ensemble for the Piccolo Spoleto Celtic Arts Series.

Personnel in the ensemble include conductors, educators, performers and professionals from throughout the United States. The Taylor Festival Choir performs the finest choral literature from all eras, with particular emphasis on new music and folk music from the Celtic nations. Dedicated to bringing the beauty and spiritual enrichment of choral music to as wide an audience as possible, the Taylor Festival Choir tours frequently, and performs outreach concerts in schools and churches throughout South Carolina and surrounding states. TFC toured Ireland with sister ensemble Na Fidleiri in 2013. A double DVD documentary chronicling that tour was recently released.

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